


A Warg-skin Dowry

by DwarrowDam



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Background Character Death, Courtship, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Bofur, M/M, OC romance, PTSD Dwalin, Rough Sex, mentions of domestic violence, same-sex attraction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:09:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarrowDam/pseuds/DwarrowDam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dwalin's still haunted by what happened at Azanulbizar, and harbours his own secret quest for the glittering hoard of Smaug. Honour can be restored, but it can't bring back the dead. The shame is palpable. Who ever heard of a warrior too afraid to sleep; a dwarf too scared of fire to work the forge?</p><p>The toy maker has reasons of his own to prove himself worthy of the Firebeard name, but thinks perhaps there is more to Dwalin than meets the eye-much to the grief of his increasingly sordid imagination.</p><p>What then is the significance the Warg skin he wears, and why does he cry out in the dark?</p><p> </p><p><b>Warnings/Triggers: Deals with subjects surrounding abuse and mental illness. Written from my own personal experiences with anxiety disorders and PTSD, representations herein are, indulgently,my own way of exploring and dealing with these themes on a personal level and no offence is meant. </b><br/> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>(Takes place en route to Erebor: some minor extra creative liberties take for the sake of romance ;) )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The campfire

**Author's Note:**

> \- Please forgive any mistakes in this un-beta' d and very first attempt at the pairing/fandom on a new device. I've been out of the realms of fanfiction for 4 years or so, so expect a little rust!
> 
>  
> 
> -All backing research comes from a combination of the Jackson films, original novel and supporting legends of The Silmarillion. Some pieces of info scoured from The Dwarrow Scholar and my own twisted imagination.

The night had fallen,unpredictably, rather dry and cold when Thorin elected they should make camp. The balmy spring days after Rivendell had thankfully passed uneventfully enough, the overly grand elf-dwelling having now faded into a dense and stifling woodland through which the company were now venturing. To be sure, Bofur thought,the hospitality of the place had been all well and good (though like most fairly respectable dwarrow he wasn't over fond of elves-though perhaps not as passionately as Thorin himself), but there was something about the formality of the lot that made the toy maker feel uneasy. He'd never been good with fancy stuff, like knowing what-fork-to-use-when or attempting what most of the pointy-ears called cultural interest, but thankfully he hadn't had to suffer it long. He did like the music (not that he'd admit aloud) being a dab hand at the flute, which he kept strapped at arm's reach under his worn-out leathers at all times, but leisurely hours were few and far between as they pushed to the Lonely Mountain before the fall of the last leaves.

  


The unthreatening lushness of their surroundings were all but now lost to the creeping blackness of nightfall, choosing as they did a clearing pinned at the edges by slender creaking trees, which blocked most moonlight with a dark and fragrant growth. Somewhere in the vicinity there must have been a stagnant pool, he realised, for the spring air's perfume was tainted as not to be wholly pleasant. Indeed, from the random placement of smooth mossy boulders about the place, there must at some point have been a river cutting through here in ages passed. Aching, the travellers had laid down their bedding some distances from the light of the fire Bombur had built begrudgingly among these small standing-stones, seeming to favour unhindered sleep over warmth.

  


Bofur preferred to stay close to where the heat was, piling his pack up behind him to serve as a makeshift pillow and propped himself up best he could. He would keep watch tonight, for the sounds of the wood were not entirely trustworthy. Staring out over the ring of slumbering dwarrow into the blind thicket, he felt the cold of the night for what it was. The chill had always bothered the toy maker (though he would never admit that either) for his people were meant to be hardy to all weathers and bearers of great burden. Bofur was small if maybe average in height, not as muscled as he would have liked and underwhelmingly hairy. Though he loved a bloody joke and could be brash, he felt at times waiting for the others to question what he brought to the company, after all, his brother maybe fat but he was a fighter and even Bilbo (as much as Bofur teased) had stealth on his side!  
Stretching out his feet towards the embers he felt a clammy shiver run through him, pulling his dirty old hat down tighter over his ears and brow, tapping his scuffed boots against the cracked earth. The scent of the cold and of the trees and the stagnant pool made him uncomfortable. There was pervading sense of unease weighing on the dwarve's mind, many conflicting thoughts-all of which had decided to come out to wrestle with one another in the relative silence. Exhaling, he drew his threadbare knees up to his chest, letting his forehead rest in the hollow for a moment while his hands found the warmth of flesh under his belt.

He'd come with his brother for the adventure he told the others, and for the good of their kind. But Bombur alone knew and shared in the reality. Nogrod had been their home, away west amongst the cold air of the Blue mountains. Two brothers they were of Firebeard stock, though only the elder bore the famed combat skill and flame-coloured hair. Sons with a single girl-child sister and ailing mother, their father full of typical drunken rage had given them two options to support their failing house: find fortune and honour in service to the King Under the Mountain, or embrace degradation mining coal for the men in East Beleriand. Not a fine blade-smith nor a warrior, Bofur's craft and musical inclination had always been shunned; a real dwarrow builds in fire and iron and steel, his father said, the only real music fit to praise Mahal the ring of the hammer!

  


He muttered something vaguely profane in khuzdul and shifted in his seat, feeling the pointier contents of his pack prod him uncomfortably in the kidneys. His mind began to wander in the dark. Better stave off boredom, he thought, or I'll fall asleep. Reaching around awkwardly he fumbled through his belongings, pausing only to brush his hair from his face and retrieved from its depths a small leather-bound tome he'd been leant by Ori. A bottle of wine he procured also, spoils from Rivendell lifted by the light fingers of Gloin. The elvish stuff had proved stronger than any of the company would admit, he mused thumbing over the fire's reflection in the glass; Though, to be fair it was a much larger serving to smaller dwarfish mouths. Taking a shallow clumsy swig he propped the book up against his patchy knees, and settled down once again, squinting in the firelight at Ori's handwriting. 

'The Maker and the Mountain' outlined the basic creation story of the dwarves, and the expanded legends of Aulë, who is in khuzdul called Mahal, great smith of the Ainur. Ever the dwarrow-scholar, Ori had researched and penned the many tales of their origins, where it is told that against the wishes of Ilúvatar,the seven fathers of his people were made, and weeping Mahal took up his hammer to destroy what he had wrought with love-only to be stayed by his master's merciful hand. So the dwarf lords were set to sleep in stone as punishment, to wake from their mountain halls after the coming of the First Born. Several chapters there were also concerning the Durin-folk, the direct bloodline of which Thorin was heir, and some further tales on petty-dwarves and suchlike. 

  


The night was surprisingly quiet, full of the reassuring sounds of nature and subtle stirring of his friends. The hours crept by into the first of the new day, black and unassuming, for the sun would not wake for many more. So too did the wine disappear, the sizeable bottle now half-emptied in Bofur's unsteady hand. Rubbing his flushed eyes against the sting of the firelight, it was apparent in his fairly tipsy state he was going to have to get up away from the warmth and find somewhere to relieve himself. So, reluctantly swerving to his feet and setting book and bottle aside, he shuffled quietly passed his sleeping brethren, and followed the cool stench of the stagnant pool into the briar-as good a place as any, he thought.

  


....………............................

_In the night it was as if he'd never lived a day since.The carrion birds sat thick as leaves in the wraith-thin trees, croaking in mockery. Smoggy air, fouled with the metallic stench of blood. The blazing sickening fires were still burning, sour and stinging to the senses. The taste of burning flesh in the back of dry, swollen mouths. The sound of hundreds of agonising screams burning in bloody, beaten ears. Pads of rough hands still caked in the blood of loved ones. He'd never cried so much in his life. Inside he'd never stopped screaming. Khûrun_.

  


When Dwalin woke it was in a cold, unclean sweat. Under his filthy clothes a dank claustrophobia lingered. Nightmares. They only came in the dark. Bolt upright he swallowed hard, stifling the urge to spill his guts. He breathed deep in attempt to quiet his coursing heart, his knotted hands clasping the tattered fur about his shoulders, steadying the heaving and taking comfort in what softness remained. His eyes streamed from the imaginary embers, or so he might admit. He focused on the markings on his hands made with dwarrow needles, his coming-of-age. The campfire was still glowing some feet away.

  


Many years had passed since the battle of Azanulbizar. The dead were beyond measure, the victory too large for smaller hands to truly hold. Dwalin had never left. So many dead. So much pain he'd denied for days unaccounted. The cool night bore some simple comfort,it's tranquility so far away from his terrors. The tired warrior closed his eyes, and breathed in the measure of the far-off dawn, taking simple solace in the sleeping noises of his kin. Dwalin and words had never been best bedfellows, but if he could have spoken he would have told you inside he was withering. For as any could have told you, dwarves, though Aulë made them strong to endure, stone-hard and fast in friendship suffer hunger, toil and hurt of body and soul more than all other speaking peoples. For none was this more true than Dwalin, Fundin-son in the autumn of his years.

Pull yourself together, he thought. Fearing lapse back into his night terrors he brought himself unsteadily to his feet, swaying towards the light like a drunk in search of preoccupation. A smooth stone there was some feet from the firelight to make a good enough perch, and the remnants of dry bread to distract him while he feigned purpose until dawn. A half-full bottle of the elf stuff he found too, and unapologetically helped himself. Whatever washed away the taste of smoke.

  


..................….......

Bofur had just about made it through the woods without falling into the festering water. He was right enough about the pool, nasty rotten stuff. Nigh good for drinking or bathing and attracting a mess of biting flying things. He wiped some mossy residue he'd acquired on his palm from trying to steady himself against a tree taking a piss. Everything in this small nook of the place was decomposing. He longed for a good brass bath of steamy, inviting water again.His always active imagination told him spiders could be lurking in the overripe undergrowth, or worse. Maybe wolves. He decided he'd better get back to the others, more for their safety than anything, of course.

  


He tripped himself up on exposed tree roots a few good times, far too preoccupied with lacing his britches up again. His tongue felt thick in his jaw with thirst, but as he followed the light out into the clearing he was confronted with the illuminated hunched figure of Dwalin, who was staring unblinking into the flame, with a firm grip on the drink.

  


Bofur didn't make eye contact, which seemed to work as Dwalin didn't register his presence, even when he fell back into his previous pile on the opposite side of the campfire some space apart. Bofur found himself making considered movements, like Dwalin was some wild animal to be watched keenly. Neither party spoke, and Bofur reassumed his defensive reading position, knees like a protective screen from the older dwarrow's gaze. Neither said a word for some time.

  


It wasn't that Bofur didn't like Dwalin, far from it. But he was a world a part from Bofur's jokes and often foul-mouthed and crude insinuations. Mr Dwalin was a respectable man, seasoned in combat and a bastion of dwarven resolve, you didn't poke fun at Dwalin if you fancied yourself keeping your legs.

  


He gave into glancing at him quickly above Ori's book for a split moment out of curiosity. What could be on his mind to make him look so intensely through nothing?  
  
He took the measure of him quietly. Standing amongst the tallest of their race (a lofty 5 feet), built broad and solid, he was born for conflict. He sat solitary against the dim light, as was his way, a weathered jaded soldier; his scars carved into his muscle as if Mahal had whittled him by Devine and mighty hand out of a single piece of solid wood-describing the strength of his arms with thick healed cuts and ropey tired veins. Forgetting in his drunken stupor to pretend otherwise, the toy maker now beheld the heat's pink colour on Dwalin's grubby face. He looked to Bofur much like an old dragon of the mountains, weary, beaten but effortlessly proud. When he found his senses again, Bofur realised he'd been staring into the older male's eyes and Dwalin was staring, wordlessly, right back. 

  


Exhaling slowly, Dwalin gestured to give up the remnants of the bottle back into toy maker's keeping. Bofur accepted the dregs unceremoniously. 

"Y'best sleep a few before morning. I'm good here" Dwalin finally spoke. Bofur nodded, leaning back on his effects. He hadn't any jokes for anyone tonight.


	2. A shock at Beorn's

Seeing the hulking beast swiping at their backs had scared Bofur half out of his hat-smothered skull. It was a bit of a shock to the system, bedding down in the skin-changers lodgings so calmly after being chased from the chaos of the goblin cavern by orcs and wargs, and now Gandalf expected them to just doze off as if there wasn't a tonne of bear prowling outside. He suspected he didn't get company much out here, let alone a troupe of imposing dwarves. Hell, he'd be inclined to be a little pissed off himself. But better a unknowable were-bear than a pack of orcs, he supposed.

 

The place was spacious enough, and a damn welcome change from whence they'd come. A clean, dry place without drafts was much preferable to cold, hard soil-especially now the spring showers were sweeping across country. And the heavy great bolt and bar across the door did wonders for peace of mind. He could deal with the livestock smell.

 

Presently, he perched atop a bale alongside Bifur and Ori staring into the room and taking long, considered draws upon his pipe. Bifer was happy to share his good leaf, which Ori usually refused preferring to scribble more notes into his latest page-binding, but he was grateful to have company. Indeed, most of the company found adrenaline had beaten exhaustion this time, and remained awake into the latter part of the evening. Bofur reached into his pouch for a half-finished piece of walnut he'd been whittling, having shaped something that could equally become a dog or a wolf at his whim. 

 

His brother Bombur was, as ever, raiding their unwilling host's pantry, much to Gandalf's protest. Balin, feeling his years had set himself down in a soft nest of wood-wool, having u usurped it from some unhappy chickens. Thorin spoke in low tones to their burglar with Dwalin looming,no doubt being questioned about where he'd up and got to when they'd be captured. He thumbed the blade of his carving knife thoughtfully, shifting the mouthpiece of his pipe lightly to one side with a clicking of teeth.

 

 

"You've a knack for that," smiled Nori, who'd elected to come join their smoking-circle "much trade in trinkets back home I suppose?"

Bofur sighed, his cousin Bifur scoffed in dismissal. Both knew there wasn't much call for their craft in Nogrod.

"Nah," he said, slightly deflated "maybe Bifer's mechanical toys, they do well in men's markets"

Bifer ran his gloved hand through his salt-and-pepper beard and made a grunting,considering noise.

 

"I just enjoy the process, meself" He added, blowing bitter smoke from the corner of his lips "and 'fer me sister. She always loved my toys"

 

"Quite the age difference I'm guessing?" Piped in Balin from the corner with an eyebrow raised, eager to have conversation unrelated to their predicament.

 

Bofur shifted in his seat, running the blade across the wolf-dog's back and casually brushing away the splinter tendrils

 

"Aye," He paused feeling a pang of guilt remembering how she cried when they'd left "a good eighty-five years, she'll be 21 by next moon. Face full of freckles and beautiful red curls. I tell ye she surprised us all-not just me mother. Looks just like me Ma and Bombi. Balarla. She was just getting her first chin-hairs when I saw her last. Aye, give it another fifty years and she'll be breaking hearts!"

 

He smiled more to himself than anyone, eyes cast down at his craft, now shaping the tail "I look like me Da. Though by blessings not his temper"

 

The others shrugged the remark off politely, and went about their chatter in quiet groups. Bombur looked over at him now from the dining table with a forced smile. It was hard for the older dwarrow to remember his younger brother's bruises and tears when they were boys. And poor mother. Best not to dwell, he sighed inwardly.

 

The light peering between the beams slowly began to wane into the night, until it was replaced by the colder, silver light of the new moon. The hearth had been tended, and crackled and spat in the corner. 

 

Most of the company were beginning to bed down, with the morning a distant and unknown horizon as intruders to this small modest haven in the wilds. Dwalin took a pitch by the far end of the place, adjacent some ways to his brother Balin,who had already begun to snore gutturally (and baffling the pigmy goats they'd robbed of their straw). The softness of the hay beneath him was welcoming, and the fragrance sweet. He'd grown used to the discomfort of the solid ground many decades before, his own body stony and ungiving. He'd been appointed his cousin's guard over half a century ago, and sleeping under the stars had out of necessity been his soul's-succour, for dwarves love their carved underground halls above all dwellings. He glanced at the hearth flame and shuddered involuntarily, a tightness rising in his gullet. Gandalf had slumped in a chair facing the doorway, his willowy legs jutting out awkwardly, and it did the ageing dwarf's heart good to see the younglings Fili and Kili curled up like ferrets together amongst the sleeping hoard. No one ever asked why he didn't light the campfires or work a forge anymore.

 

 

He wearily shed his armour and laying it aside took the balding pelt, and draping it protectively against the expanse of his chest, buried his tattooed hands in its thick pile. Dwalin sighed softly, thumbing it erratically with eyes cast to the lime-washed ceiling. Trying to calm himself enough to rest, this had become his small private ritual when he was assured of solitude. He gazed at a beaten leather scabbard, usually lashed to his thigh under his garments now by his side. A dull yellow-metal glinted in the gloom back at him. _After all this time_. He exhaled and shut his eyes breathing in the wild scent of the fur, and lay for hours stirring restlessly, awaiting sweet and terrible unconsciousness. _The burning never stops_.

 

The rain fell soothingly against the thatch come midnight. Having been woken already by his brother's great bulk rolling into his person, Bofur shuffled further into the straw-nest they'd all gathered for themselves, and pulled his hat out from under him ceremoniously. His limbs hummed softly with laboured stiffness. The place was quiet, strangely peaceful for unfamiliar land. A shaft of blade-thin moonlight pierced the ceiling and fell upon him where he'd rolled, unsettling his eyes and now making sleep in his new position troublesome. He shifted groggily some way towards Balin and Dwalin, careful not to stir or impose as best he might. It was there from this angle, lying against the wall and blocked mostly by a dusty table he made out two figures casting shadows by the hearth. 

 

Thorin. And Bilbo. Kissing. 

 

The toy maker rubbed his eyes fervently and stared in disbelief. And there it was, not quite clear as day but obvious to anyone who might stir from sleep, the Prince upon his bedspread with the burglar in his lap and his arms around his tiny waist, stripping him furiously not twenty-feet away. Bofur clapped his hand over his mouth to hush whatever sound might come out, surprised or otherwise. The hobbit was ravenous at the dwarf-prince's throat, biting and sucking and pulling at his partner's shirt. Thorin's hands were in his curls and scraping up the curve of his spine in the light. Before Bofur's eyes they were both in stages if undress and writhing around slowly against one another, the silence only pitted with catches of breath and tiny half-stifled groans. The dwarf cradled the smaller man between his thighs, tearing at his belt and tossing his garments aside.

 

Bofur's face flushed hot in embarrassment, but his eyes did not shut. Nor did he dare turn away into the hay, for fear of discovery-or so he would reassure himself. Even in the darkness, the way they looked at each other stirred a place in his loins, watching Thorin take Bilbo's now naked buttocks in his strong hands and with a whisper, pull himself roughly inside him. The hobbit's head rolled back in a quiet ecstasy, his mouth being captured by the dwarrow above in hungry, greedy kisses. The way they held each other as if they'd fall apart. This wasn't the brute seeking of satisfaction between men he'd seen on his travels, he thought gaze still unwavering, this was making love.

 

The tightness in his trousers betrayed him more than his brown eyes ever could, an unworthy intruder into the intensely erotic intimacy of their moment. He watched the hobbit arch and shiver when the prince took his member in hand and began the torturous ministrations of passion. Bofur flushed all over with heat and guilt, still unable to look away and now unable to ignore or hinder the sensitive and delicious friction of the coarse fabric of his garments against his throbbing member. His body begged for long-forgotten touch, but his hands found only his clammy face. He bucked his hips involuntarily, savouring the fleeting pressure on his begging cock. On hearing the hobbit whimper softly in climax, he swallowed hard and purged himself silently and with force in the dark, shuddering into the straw below as Thorin spent himself inside his lover. 

 

He dared not move until they were returned to rest, and cleaning himself up best he could without rousing suspicion, he lay in shame and exhilaration, now totally aware of his long-faded libido. His body vibrated with the beat of his excited heart, now slowing as he searched for sleep again. He began to hear the moans of a different kind as he slipped between the sleepy veil in which orgasm was swaddling him. 

 

A few feet to his side, Dwalin lay, twitching furiously, powerful hands clenching beneath into the dusty floor. Nightmares. Perhaps even sordid wet dreams of his own. Bofur found himself staring at the muscular contortion of the warrior's limbs, the way his throat caught with every pained, gravelly murmur. And the strength in his tattooed hands. His hands were rough and callous, better suited to gripping the hide of a battle-axe than drawing out the tender desires of a lover, too unkind looking for the worship of rose-pink or milky flesh. He felt his stomach knot as his mind involuntarily conjured images of what the older dwarf's cock might look like. He exhaled and buried the thoughts as quickly as they'd come. 

If tonight proved anything to Bofur, it was this-it had been a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm drawing ages for this fic from Tolkein's brief writings on the dwarves and this rather handy study found [here](http://axebow.lcwsites.net/archive/0/comparativeages.html)


	3. Mornings After Nights Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being an accidental peeping-Tom is the worst, and Bofur knows it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Sorry for the delay with this one (real life is so inconsiderate like that). Hopefully it is a pleasing enough offering, and i will endeavour to have the next installment served up as swiftly as the universe allows., thank you to everyone who's commented :) I am honoured. X

_The watchful night closed in, the silence after the last battle almost as harrowing as its carnage. Seven terrible years, full of relentless fear. Done. Bloody and sickening to the minds and hearts of all who fought and remember the tragic cost of reclaiming Khazad-dûm . Not one house was spared the grief of loss, for countless lives were snuffed out like lantern light upon the mountain's rocky plateaus. Firebeards, Ironfists, Broadbeams,Stonefoots. From Ered Luin to The Misty Mountains the clans wept for fallen sons and brothers, fathers laid to rest without the customary sacred rites. He felt their suffering two-fold. Dwalin wasn't there when his father fell upon the enemy's sword, nor see the strength of his arm fail. Only the burning. Only the acrid stench that rose into the dark skies. For so many perished against the Orc hoards in those days that pyres stood in the stead of tombs of stone, leaving no hallowed place to revel in memory._

_He wasn't there when Fundin's light dimmed, but he would remember for all time the life that slipped away in his own arms. The dark hair sticky with blood, the trembling confessions from lips he'd kissed so many times. A lover's cold blue eyes, empty. He could still feel the coldness in his blood. Those unblinking eyes staring into the desolate heavens, with nothing left behind them he'd adored.Khûrun. Nearly a decade sharing victories and fear, and he'd not been there when the fatal wound was made.  
When they burnt him,something inside Dwalin died. So many things unspoken. His duty had been to protect his prince, but in his nightmares the crown of Durin had been beaten into a shackled collar for his neck. For countless nights he lay between sleep and waking blithering his name. Khûrun. Oh, Mahal, Khûrun._

_He'd never been able to face more than a campfire after that day. At one-hundred and sixty six, even that took every ounce of strength he possessed, fighting the madness, the claustrophobic creep of sickness in his gut, that terrible suffocating hot panic in remembrance of the smell of burning fat and bone. The reek of his blood ever under his fingernails, and the fetid pungency of scalded dwarrow-meat. Every new day was a war inside himself, to fight the impulse to let the chaos spill and breakdown in a quaking drooling mess._

 

When his eyes slit open the quiet coolness of the lodge was a world away. He moved not, but saw only the toy maker of the Blue Mountains leering over his shivering form. Attentive, flustered, bemused.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The next morning the company were delighted to receive a hearty breakfast, even more so than usual on account that Beorn, now in the form of a towering and beastly man, hadn't eaten any of them. He was a formidable figure, shaggy-haired and looming taller even than their grey wizard. His voice, though in possession of great power spoke only in lulled, gentle tones, and he cared greatly for his animal wards. He told them at length the nature of his people, holding in particular the attentions of dwarrowlings Fili and Kili who sat peering over his great high table like wide-eyed excitable children. 

 

Bofur was almost silent for the duration. He'd avoided making any and all eye contact with Thorin or the burglar and even went so far as to avoid even looking _at_ them as best he could manage, running his hand over his bearded chin thoughtfully. After supping his milky porridge he stayed some time around the table with the others feigning interest in polite discourse, fidgeting at the loose threads of his scarf. It had been decided at the most gracious whim of Beorn himself, they would stay for at least another few nights for surety of safety from the Orc pack that had chased them whence so abruptly.

 

Witnessing the whole affair last night had knocked him for six. Not that he was surprised now looking in the light of day knowing what he knew, watching the prince out of the corner of his eye. The way he looked at the hobbit, the unspoken closeness between them as they conversed as normal to the rest of the troupe. Bilbo's mannerisms had changed from twitchy and alert to a more relaxed, hushed voiced and rosy-cheeked version of himself. As if some great burden was now from him, like a child still and hazy from a fit of tears.You probably saw their first time he thought, and that great knot of shame came upon him again, like he'd shared something that wasn't his to take, and enjoyed it even worse.

 

Desire had never been much of an issue with Bofur. He liked what he liked; male bonds were not uncommon among their race, but the culture of the Blue Mountains never spoke on the matter very much. He had not taken another to bed in two decades at least, too preoccupied with the preservation of family name and loved ones for amorous fair, and that certainly hadn't left time to seek a mate. Absence in his case made the heart forgetful, and he'd forsaken satisfying physical needs other than by his own hand years before. But seeing those two brought back the ghosts of what it was like to be held by another, to be wanted, to be sucked and fucked and driven wild and to fall onto sheets in post-passion's embrace. 

 

A stone sat defiantly in his gut. When he finally came to from his flight into carnal fantasy, he'd been staring in Thorin's direction for some minutes. More specifically, straight on over the table,at his captain of the guard, Dwalin. He kicked himself instantly recalling his sordid musings post-climax the night before. You don't make jokes about Mr Dwalin and you certainly don't think about his dick, if you know what's good for you. 

 

"Don't they have big dwarf men where you're from, laddie?" Came a voice in his ear suddenly. He jumped inside himself, a hand on his left shoulder. Balin.

 

"-his tattoos," Bofur retorted rather too quickly and defensive "just wondering what they mean, 'tis all"

 

The senior dwarf chuckled softly and took a seat beside him, stroking his snowy pronged beard and gesturing to Óin to fill his bowl once more with Beorn's rich provisions.

 

"Oh, I see. Aye. They're warrior marks. Those who dedicate their lives to the field of battle wear them, like my brother. See he wears no braids?" Balin inflected.

 

The toy maker made no reply but looked somewhat puzzled at the elder.

 

"Ah, right" Balin tutted at himself, pausing to take a mouthful and clapping his thigh lightly "I forget the wee cultural differences between Ered Luin and the Blue Mountains. Our fighters are not accustomed to wearing braids and instead they adorn themselves with markings to show rank and achievements, unless they marry of course. I forget. There's not a distinct combat class in Nogrod is there?"

Bofur shook his head, and the taking another few mouthfuls, Balin continued.

 

"No shame in that mind. Some of the finest smiths in the seven kingdoms in Nogrod and Belegost, had to be to forge the Nauglamír all that age ago. I digress. Unlike many of his rank, my brother didn't choose the warrior's class at his coming of age. He'd be trained by our father since he could hold a battle-axe, showed real promise when he was just a babe. By the time he was thirty-three he'd passed his first trial by single combat, youngest in our records to do so in a thousand years. That's where the runes on his hands come from. Our highest honour"

 

"Why so young?" Bofur slurped astonished, wiping his moustache roughly with his cuff "Feck,I was still getting into scraps with girls in my thirties, who did he have to fight?" Balin drained the bowl in front of him and exhaled, eyes cast down on the tabletop.

"Our father," he smiled "floored the man in sixty-seconds flat. He was being groomed to guard the unborn Heir of Durin. A proud day for the house of Lord Fundin.He died with honour many years ago...but he was always proud of my brother. And now he stands at Thorin's right hand"

Bofur glanced thoughtfully back at Dwalin across the room, before being nudged lightly by Balin.

"Ori's got a volume on the customs of Old Erebor. Should you find yourself bored one evening" he said getting to his feet, adding impishly with a wink "and Bofur lad-I'd be keeping what you saw last night under that hat of yours, if I were you"

 

The rest of the morning passed still and warmer than those previous,a muggy haze drifting over the vast downs drawing in the moisture from the far-off seas across the plains. The scent of the beckoning summer was almost about the wild surrounds. Their host had gone about his business, venturing far from the cabin-come-cottage to patrol his borders and seek council with other things of the wilderness in secret unknown places. They would be safe, he told them, to wander about his territories as they wished until they should decide it wise to continue on, and were given full leave to go about where they may in respite among nature.

 

Gandalf himself seemed the only one in their number to sympathise with the beast-man's affinity with the grasslands and the wood, for unlike others such as Radagast, who immersed himself in the woodland but was not of it, Beorn and his kin were tied inexplicably and totally to the land itself. Belonging to it, as though the two were inseparable and without distinction.

 

Dwarves knew little of the wild and took no great majesty in the lush green of things that grew from the fertile earth. Theirs was a love of stone, immense and unchangeable, cold and given shape only by their own toil and desires. They had little interest or understanding for the fruits of Yvanna, great wife of their lord and maker Mahal-creator and giver of life to all that is green and living throughout Eru. Indeed, for in her it is said in many writings she feared her spouse's creations and their impact upon her bountiful art, and thus even in the writings of scholars she is gifted no name of her own in Khuzdul. 

 

This mattered not much to the company, save Ori who took a scholarly appreciation for the old tales themselves. All the same they took this brief protection under the beast man as an opportunity to be pleasantly distracted from the task at hand. The acres over which Beorn presided rolled out across vast meadows, now lush in the season with sweet grass wet with dew, unfurling like thick-piled carpeting over hillocks and plunging into shaded forest clefts. It had an air of peace about it, or rather a gentle stillness untinged by the nervous apprehension they'd come to accept as norm. Unusually for their race, the dwarrow that made up the majority began to relax into the landscape, breaking off into smaller parties in the late morning to explore the thickets and the rocky outcrops and to sit in the morning sun. Even the hobbit was surprised at the change of atmosphere in their number, those that had been bred finding security in torch-lit caverns and cool darkness now dropping their guard to sit and rest among the velvety moss. Bilbo himself slipped off into an orchard (under the guise of procuring second breakfast), undoubtably followed by his brazen bearded suitor, who was absent from the others.

 

....………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

The ageing dwarrow didn't much like Beorn's place. Or Beorn. Sure it was a dry place to sleep and the food was coming readily enough, but was the enemy of his enemy a friend? He didn't like relying on the strength of others, especially non-dwarves. There was no brotherhood to be had there, the beast man was a wild thing. He knew only survival, not honour. He'd prefer to face the Orc pack on his own terms, hiding was weakness. Didn't matter, he thought. Out of here soon enough.

 

He spent breakfast discussing their plan of action with his prince. Not that Thorin's head was really in it, to be perfectly frank. That was the halfling's doing, no doubt. He knew what unfulfilled longing looked like in the eyes of another. Knew the change in the gaze and laxness in the muscle of one relieved, when the burden of uncertainty is lifted. So the burglar had reciprocated his affections, it seemed. Good, he supposed. He did however feel a discomfort in weigh in his stomach, for Dwalin knew the danger of their mission, and such a fragile thing is love to weather greed and dragon fire; Flowers on battlefields rarely ever bloom, and iron boots trample more that bones. Even if they make it, there'll be hell to pay with the Longbeard's if he's serious about him. He rolled his eyes, arms crossed thoughtfully over his chest and sighed to Thorin. Out of the corner if his eye he could have sworn he'd caught the smaller Blue Mountain dwarf staring at him again.

 

"What the fuck d'ya suppose he's gawping at now?" He muttered to the prince, who was mostly too preoccupied with watching the hobbit eating fruit a tad too delicately. 

"Sorry, what?" Thorin replied, breaking his gaze and turning to his captain of the guard "the Firebeard? Why what's wrong with him?"

"Hmm. Nothing, I suppose." Dwalin sighed. Awkward little blighter, he thought watching him seem to spill something down himself. Didn't get the bulk of the ginger one, probably didn't get a look in at the dinner table by the size of him, he thought. Regardless, there were more pressing matters at hand, "Best be getting things in order."

 

He knew better than to press Thorin for much more that afternoon. He was quiet and away with himself, and his subtle tranquility was almost annoying to his captain given their situation. Dwalin was here both out of duty to his prince and for gold. The hoard of Smaug was a thing of legend even to those who had witnessed Erebor first hand, and Dwalin sought jewels of particular brilliance, though Arkenstone they were not. Sapphires hewn ages previous from the heaving guts of the earth, flawless and pale like mournful eyes in darkness. An empty setting awaited them in a scabbard lashed under his garments. He longed to feel the coldness of a stone in his trembling hand, which had with potency but without much skill forged a blade of simple beauty, a symbol of his devotion-an unproven dowry,ungiven. 

 

He found himself better off alone that day, as the others splintered off among the flora to take rest. He himself could not give over so easily to merriment or idleness. He preferred to walk among the woods and scout the land with his own senses and to hunt, not comforted by the man-bear's assurances or satisfied to eat solely from another's table. The day grew humid and unsettling, with the thick greenery of the trees providing little relief to his thickly armoured hide, for he'd be damned to go without. When the air grew stagnant in the later afternoon, Dwalin finally relented. After following an incline to a shallow gully in unsuccessful search of quarry, he came upon a pond fed by a waning stream, which while not more than several feet wide was deep enough by his height's measure and thickly fringed with reed and duckweed. 

 

Though the bottom was dark with soil the water itself was plenty clear enough. Even with his constant alertness to danger, the warrior felt his resolve ebb when remembering how long it had been since he'd felt cool water against his aching muscle; the luxury of feeling clean on the road. He'd grown used to the constant salty tang on his flesh years ago during the wars, when blood could cake you for weeks, and not necessarily just your own. Some chances were too good to pass up, and without much thought he'd stripped himself, dashed his effects on the bank and waded in.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Embarrassed by Balin's jest earlier that morning, Bofur elected to keep distance and spent time with his brother and Ori, to whom he had taken a shine for his innocent enthusiasm (not _too_ dissimilar to his own) and his wealth of entertaining volumes. Indeed, reading was another thing the younger Firebeard had come to enjoy-yet another thing his Da wasn't approving of in addition to his music. All the same. Tales were good, and making merry was good. And at this juncture they were fortunate enough to have time for a good lot of each. He'd laid down in the grass listening to Ori read aloud, saying he'd rather hear the more timid dwarf speak. Truth be told? He could manage a few pages, but he was a slow reader and was worried he'd look stupid if he spoke the words, even in front of Bombur (who, mostly out of kindness said nothing on the subject). He instead reclined into the dewy heather and intended to smoke until his lungs were sore.

 

He'd also come to realise how little he knew about other dwarrow culture outside his own, hearing his friend reel off the customs of the Lonely Mountain folk. Blue Mountain dwarves were rather similar in their traditions as men to the reckoning of most, married once or not at all, had generally few children and their braiding was mostly decorative in the underclasses without any real inference. Not so however in Erebor, land of the Durin Folk and the eldest of their people's traditions.  
Making a pair bond for one was a much more complicated affair. A marriage as an official union was preceded by an often lengthy courtship, in which a dowry must be offered to the Dam consisting of a sum of gold or some gesture of equal value in worth. A weapon was also a commonplace addition to this, usually symbolic of the husband-intended's strength as a protector and to be kept by his partner as warning to him should his eyes stray or hand be raised. Their braids too changed with marital status and occupation, and in some cases as with the royals, rank. Bofur chuckled imagining some of the party having to woo is such a damned formal way, and what sort of hell Prince Thorin might be raising with his family if he intends to bring the Hobbit into the marriage bed. Two males making a formal pair-bond was apparently not unheard of to Erebor's lineage either, Ori himself remarking that he'd had a few suitors back home himself-not that is older brothers would have any of it until his study was completed.

 

He stayed in company until morning became afternoon and afternoon turned into the cusp of evening, the sun still wonderfully warm hanging low in the sky in that place where evening had yet to whisper. He'd spoke with his brother about what they intended to do once they'd claimed their fair lot of the gold, but Bombur was never one for long discourse and soon went in search of edible things in the wilds, followed shortly by Ori who was adamant he was needed to identify flora lest Bombur poison himself in greed. The toy maker lay still, having packed his pipe away and true to word now too hoarse to bother with his usual musical musing. The fronds of wet greenery around him reached under his grubby clothes and began to itch and irritate, and as he pulled his hat down to scratch the back of his crown he became aware of how disgusting these past few days had left him. Letting down his braids and running a coarse palm through his greasy dark hair he furrowed his brow and made a groaning noise to himself. There had to be some body of water around the place that was good for washing? Not quite the hot bath he'd been lusting after these past few weeks but just to feel refreshed again would be a world of blessing, he thought.  
Surely there must be a place, with such a healthy wood? 

 

He rose wearily and surveyed the rolling pastures around him in the light of the late afternoon, stretching his restless limbs and muttering to himself where the others may have gotten to. He elected to follow the gentle incline of the hillock down into a wooded clearing eastward, swinging his hat casually at his side as he went, which frankly, could have done with a thorough scrub itself. 

Coming downing a ways into the shade of a gnarled and pock-marred oak he felt the air cool slightly,though not enough so it might be unpleasant. The mouth of the forest was broad and invitingly tranquil, with the rustle of the balmy breeze through the canopy above contrastingly peaceful to days on the road crunching through grey gravel; in this cooler delving shrubs skirted the taller, older softwoods while the ground was studded with moist glinting mushroom caps, like dainty pearls nestled in the grass. Indeed, they seemed to grow more densely and numerous as Bofur followed the slope of the earth downward, until he spied that a small trickle of a stream broke through the muddy banks ahead of him. He cracked a smile in subtle triumph.

 

As he walked the body of water grew wider down the hillside into a valley of trees, and it's scent was sweet and flow swift enough to know it was uncommonly clean. He followed it some ten minutes into the woodland, listening to it's quiet rush across water-worn pebbles and through small clumps of bull rush, before stopping where it swelled into a small clear pool encircled by towering reeds. Grinning, the tiring toy maker threw himself onto his knees into the mud, and bringing the water in cupped grubby hands made attempts to wash the muggy sweat from his brow and to drink deep.

 

Suddenly, some way in the background he heard the movement of deeper water, like slow disruption or almost splashing. Then a hacking coughing noise, followed by grunting. Spitting. Definitely not a deer, then. Immediately out of instinct he flattened himself low to the ground, pressing to the leaf-litter. There'd been orcs here before, after all. Had he strayed beyond Beorn's security? There was no was way he'd stand a chance alone. Better he mimic Bilbo and keep quiet.

 

Before he knew quite why he found himself crawling on his elbows between the pond-grass and burying himself deeper into hiding there. He heard a deep and tired exhale, which seemed more robust than the whimpering tones he'd come to associate with the corrupted folk. He could see through the curtain of rushes just a crack, and realised he'd merely come upon the neck of a much greater pool. Again came the gentle sounds of the faint disruption of water. The sound of deliberate sniffing. Compelled by some strange force and peering out from under the brim of his hat, he carefully peeled back a small swathe of bull rush to spy on the mystery creature.

 

The sight that confronted the stealthy toy maker put a jab in his stomach and dark flush to his face. Looking up and before him some six or seven feet away, standing thigh deep in the water was the captain of the guard. Instantly and as silently as he could Bofur flipped onto his back and snapped his eyes shut, face now forced up towards the trees, but far too late to unsee the full measure of his thick-set naked body. At least that's what he would tell himself he did later on, for in reality while he felt an exhilarating embarrassment he didn't quite turn away so swiftly. For minutes his eyes lingered in quiet shock and a greedy voyeuristic indulgence, taking in the full measurement of his bare body.  
He was heavily muscled, as to be expected, his broad shoulders ruddy with dust and dirt that he was scrubbing off roughly. A strong jaw line followed a thick and pronounced jugular vein, which plunged into the definition of his neck onto a broad hulking chest. He stood twisted at the waist, occasionally cupping water over his hair and face with his powerful hands. His back was hard, tattooed and cut. As most dwarf men, he was considerably gifted with chest hair, except for evidence of very old scarring, which made bald slashes across his collar bone and were whiter than the rest of him. He stood, waded in half way up his solid thighs, which bore the same scaly old marks of healing raked from his knees up to his groin. Between them his flaccid genitals hung heavily under their weight, straining against the rest of his dark-haired muscular form.

 

"I know you're there," he spat mockingly, running a hand through his beard "I can smell your 'fucking pipe-smoke"

 

Bofur froze and felt his throat begin to tighten in panic, but still he did not move, and remained silent. Dwalin laughed, turning his face to the canopy. A low rumble came from far off in the distance and the air felt decidedly warm, signalling the coming of an evening storm. He let out a vaguely amused sigh and turned away to shore.

 

"I don't fucking know which one of you's in there but ye can't stay there forever," he scoffed, and as if by his command the heavens seemed to open, the rain on the leafy-roof hissing like dry seeds pouring onto a cold concrete floor "if you're going around acting like some sort of pervert, ye might at least try and be a dry one" and with that the older dwarrow gathered up his effects to dress, before turning to head back up the hillock.

 

He gazed over in the toy maker's direction.  
" I'll be going the opposite way. You better get a move on before it starts pissing it down!"

 

Bofur lay there amongst the leaf-litter in shock, until he knew he was alone again, slowly getting muddier and wetter from the rain. It was as if he'd somehow stunned himself and it wasn't until some minutes later, soaked through and cold,that he began the trudge back up the hill.


	4. What the storm drags in/ What follows us in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mirkwood isn't dying. It's dead, and there's a sickness inside for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SWEET LORD it's taken way longer to complete this chapter than I thought. Many apologies, combination of personal relationship, mental health issues and working two jobs were a factor. Thanks for your patience, hope you enjoy :)

When Bofur finally arrived at Beorn's the night had well and truly fallen, and having in panic and embarrassment soaked the mud from his clothes in the water, came through the heavy doors sopping and shivering. Less hardy he was than the others, and the wind beginning to howl outside seemed caught up in his bones as an ache set into him. The hour was growing late, and he found nor desired any supper, throwing himself back into a corner by the hearth to warm himself and wring our his tatty clothes.

 

His company asked blessed little of where he had been, and he would tell them the next day he had fallen into a slumber only to wake with the storm and the deluge. Dwalin appeared none the wiser, and took to sleeping without much recognition of the toy maker's return. It was revealed in passing by Bombur, who tutted and fussed over his younger brother gruffly, that they had planned over the evening meal to take their leave at first light. Beorn would accompany them to the borders of his lands, and was out patrolling in beast form to cast his eye ahead on their behalf. Bofur nodded sheepishly and kept close to the hot stone of the hearth, squeezing the rain from his unbraided hair and generally looking sorry for himself.

 

His brother, despite his rotund and battle-sure bearing had always been terribly kind and had spent his boyhood looming protectively over Bofur. Naturally larger and usually of fewer words, he'd always been there to lend his quiet reassuring air to any of his brother's trysts, be it being pushed around by the older dwarrowlings in the village or being on the receiving end of their father's rage. He sighed lighthearted down at him, pulling off and wringing out his trademarked hat onto the stone, remembering the day he'd come home wearing it slipped down over his nose out of the blue the day after his thirtieth birthday. He'd been gifted it by Blind Old Thaást the toy maker in Nogrod, from whom Bofur had learnt the love of his craft, and loved dearly as a grand-sire. The old dwarrow delighted in his company and kept him as a workshop-boy and apprentice, much to his father's distain, and his shop was the place Bofur often ran away to when home life became too much to bear.   
Taking off Bofur's shirt to dry on the hot stone a flash of an old healed scar crept up along the curve of his hip to his belly, raised and dull crimson. He knew not to stare as it made Bofur ashamed. His father had beaten them both in childhood, but paid Bofur more attention for being smaller and a less-able fighter, sometimes even going to far as to hurt Bombur for his little brother's perceived failings in hope that it might make animosity or put strife between the pair. The night he'd been given that scar, he'd come home crying from the workshop, poor Old Thaást was dead.

 

There was never anything their father could do that could make him love his brother less, and that remained true into their quest for the Lonely Mountain. 

 

"Daft bastard," Bombur smiled, now re-braiding his brother's dark hair tenderly, wrung of rainwater "you'll catch your death one of these days"

 

Bofur was quiet for the most part, and finally dry gathered up some soft hay and nested snugly down into it not far from the hearth, mind humming incessantly in the darkness awaiting some semblance of rest. He'd gotten away without being found out by Dwalin at least it seemed, though he felt like an damned idiot and now doubly perverted for spying on someone else, even if unintentionally. His imagination would betray him again that night, for in sleep he was visited by images of the warrior's great sweating bulk crushing wantonly against his naked body, the feeling of his chest hair bunched in his palms and his thick skilled fingers preparing his achingly moist opening. He had fucked him roughly and without reserve, purging himself inside him with a primal grunt and Bofur had gagged and moaned for the size of him. When he awoke before sunrise, a burden was on his body and a weakness to his mind-he had sullied himself yet again.

 

..............................................................................................................................................................................................

 

The morning they departed from the hospitality of Beorn's bore the fresh chill of a spring sunrise, carrying the scent of frost long-defeated by the sun's meandering rays. They were graciously gifted ponies to bear them across the grasslands and the meadows, stout and robust creatures more suited to rocky climbs than the open moor. The hobbit was saddled with the prince, and it took no twist of imagination to see he was far too comfortable pressed up against the dwarf having not so long ago appeared adversaries. Fíli and Kíli smirked and talked and giggled amongst themselves like dwarrow-dammes in a scullery, earning both of them a light clip round the ears from Mr. Dwalin himself coming up gruffly behind them on a fat sable Shetland. 

 

Dwalin didn't like ponies much either. Minds of their own and unpredictable at best. Dwarves generally didn't favour travel on horseback unless the journey was long and arduous, which he supposed rightly, this was at least. Still, pleasant enough to have the luxury of a fast pace without too much energy better spent watching out. As for Thorin and his hobbit, well, let them be obvious if they want. His job was keeping Thorin safe, it wasn't his place to pass judgement on displays of affection. He had his gems to seek, and dwarrow to keep in line. The young dwarrow Fíli and Kíli were rambunctious and too often required reigning in, while the others far senior we're prone to squabble but peaceable enough. Ori, whilst young and enthusiastic was quiet and guided by the experience of his brothers, and Bifur...well, he was Bifur, the less said about that the better. The Firebeard brothers were another odd one. The younger one anyway, he was always looking dumbfounded into space or making some sort of vaguely amusing quip. Okay, Dwalin admited, he was actually rather funny when he meant to be. But he never spoke to him and appeared either slightly terrified or indifferent. He also looked a little well, fragile. He was fairly average in height, average in build if a little less stocky for a dwarrow in his hundred-and-tens, and could fight well enough, but there was something in his face. A sort of hollowness in his eyes when he thought no one was looking. He knew what that felt like.

 

Increasingly as they traveled out across to the borders of the beast man's realm he noticed that the same Blue Mountain dwarf was running pale. Perched behind his brother on their mount he slouched, appearing pallid, spread-thin. No doubt caught himself something unpleasant staying out in the rain, he smirked. Oh yes, he knew.

 

When finally the morning waxed into afternoon and the great bear's shadow disappeared from their side, they came to the foot of a great choking thicket. Not brier, but dark twisting forest. Almost black, and emanating from it's tower not the scent of sickening rot but of warm,thick and bitter dust. Not dying, dead. Yards to its approach the heat of the daytime sun seemed to be sucked from the breeze into it, leaving the meadow surrounding eerily cold on the ground, devouring the hope of spring itself.

 

 

It was here that the wizard abandoned them, being called by his golden she-elf, the Lady herself. Despite protest, their guide broke from them and though voices were raised, the band of half-folk could do no more than watch his wispy figure tear across the distance. They remained at its outskirts, quibbling over the best course of action and Gandalf's own advice. They also whispered amongst themselves the nature of what passed between their sorcerer and The Lady of Lorien. Galadriel was scaldingly beautiful, pale and burning like a brilliant timeless star, even by dwarvish standards,and she bore quiet affection for the old man. They knew so little of Gandalf himself, could he have ever been a young man, enthralled by her grace or swept up in unrequited love? Who could say. Certainly not Bofur, who said nothing and remained quiet and slumped over, having begrudgingly dismounted his pony for it to return to Beorn. He had felt out of sorts since daybreak, over-warm and uncomfortable in his garments and with a light head under his slouched and increasingly uncomfortable hat. The dirty warmth of the wood's mouth made a sickness in the pit of his gut, and he felt a cool sweat begin to break upon him. 

 

It was decided within the hour they would have to brave the Elven path, for time was not with them. The toy maker swallowed hard. They stood now alone together, a humble huddle, jaws agape against this massive natural force-this _Mirkwood_. It was Gloin, ever-brave who breached the border first and stepped wilfully into shadow. The silence was pregnant with unrest, no birds, no beast-call, but immovable quiet. Tightly they held together, wandering into the gloom in single-file with eyes firmly fixed in the ruin of the pathway, illuminated only by wisps of light piercing though the hollow trees. The hobbit was right, they thought, there was a terrible sickness in this place. Once ivory-white statues of elegant wood elves now stood yellowed and dirty along the way, like ivy-choked ghosts watching mournfully out over the gates; Their pupil-less eyes staring vacantly into the murk, eerily gazing over the company as they traveled ever further into the thicket.

 

Time seemed to pass slowly in this place, if at all. The absence of light made it hard to divine how long they had followed the dusty path, like days bled together spent in a windowless cell. Trees began to take on familiar shapes, root knots appearing ever similar as if they had passed them before. The air became seemingly thicker the deeper they trudged, and the warmth was swiftly becoming unbearable to even the hardiest of the Durin folk. The shadows seemed to shift at a glance, the forest itself changing yet never ending in their wake. After what seemed fathomless hours stumbling in the darkness of paranoia and fear, the path was lost. And minds of the company began to follow suit. It was as if a drunkenness has settled upon them, or madness, and they began to separate as if wandering in a terrible sleep. Each began to see but the blurred essence of the other, and followed his possessed feet further into the labyrinth of dead trees. 

 

A hot claustrophobia set in, oppressive like the threat of distant thunder, filling lungs with dusty acrid air. Bofur, who had begun on uneasy feet was now in the grips of a woeful fever, his breath now laboured with the filth and the heat and the shadows that seemed to play tricks on his mind, fighting the urge to let his eyes rolls into his skull and let the hallucinations swallow him up into the sickness of the place. He threw aside his own weed pouch, filling with a muted dread that the footprints under him were of some dwarf-sized monsters hiding in wait in the dusk. He felt suddenly very sick, and almost blind emptied his stomach contents on the path-less dirt floor and fell to his knees. He cast his head back dramatically, wrenching his hat from his hair and stared with starving eyes for light in the canopy that scarcely broke through. He could make out so little, like staring through glass in a flash flood the colours refracted and burnt and cast familiar shapes into broken pieces about him in the void.

 

Then came a rustling. Then came a voice.

 

_Get up boy._ it came, first like the wind through dry grass. A low and piercing hiss resonating a pitch familiar and awful.

 

A cold shock broke in the toy maker's chest, and craning his aching neck down from the obscured heavens in the swirling void the forest had dissolved into, he sat now at the foot of a figure who's shape seemed to be moulding itself in the darkness as it spoke. The stink of stale beer welled up in the stifling heat. Flame coloured hair framed empty and fierce eyes, which at first had no anchoring until features bled through into being around them, seeping out like molten metal on stone until the full measure of the spectre revealed itself and loomed over the dwarrow in all it's horrifying glory, lunging to snatch at Bofur's coiled arm.

 

It was then he realised staring straight into him were the burning eyes of his father.

 

_You always were sickly. Just like your useless mother_

 

And as the creature twisted the limb before him Bofur saw outstretched his own bruised child's wrist and hand, now small and trembling again, and when he made to cry out in pain and terror the voice that came was screaming and unbroken as it had been in his boyhood. Eyes fixated still on the shape of his father his other hand scraped painfully at his own face, and he felt he was nearly beardless and soft and young and full of tears. The void sucked the air from him and suddenly through surly laughter he was in his family's forge he'd been too frightened to enter, and all there was were his father's eyes,the screaming, the flash of a smoking brand and the abhorrent burning on his groin. _No Da, please Da I promise I won't cry any more!_

 

The pain lingered, but the vision dissolved as it had come as if encircled by protective arms. Anything that held shape in his conscious mind thereafter was scalded by whiteness, fading slowly into the shadow of the stinking humidity of the forest. A cold kiss lingered on his fevered lips. There was nothing but darkness now, and the sound of footsteps close to him, tapping gently on the baked soil bellow. 

 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Dwalin was standing in a clearing when he first became aware he'd broken away from the others, snapping back as if from a daydream, only to find he'd wandered far into the wastes completely unaware and now very alone. The heat was unbearable, and he pulled the musty fur from his shoulders wearily letting it fall to his side, peering into the gloom misty- eyed and disorientated, reeling in the humidity. 

 

He strained to swallow the pungency of the woodland in his unease, his tongue swollen and thick in a dry mouth. His surroundings seemed to lose focus of their own accord, and he felt compelled to stand and let the claustrophobia of the place hold him where he stood, feeling the air about him vibrating with the movement of the unseen. Like looking through steamed glass, the ageing dwarrow became aware of the shapes of gnarled trees like ill-defined ghosts, cloaked as if by some strange magic, which would dissolved into their surroundings and come into sight by the forest's own volition. His mind was in a fog, through which he now felt the presence of something else watching over him from the void before him.

 

_Ghivashel..._ it whispered softly at first, like rain coming through the haze.

 

_Dwalin, my captain, look at me_ it came again, and taking shape before him a figure was wrought from the ether. Blue eyes blazed through the darkness and seared against dark hair, knitting itself into a pale bearded face, staring out back at the warrior in terror horrifying and familiar.

 

"Khûrun," he breathed, feeling his knees give way beneath him.

 

Revealed from the mists before him stood the vestige of his darkest nightmares, a dwarf pale and ill to behold dressed in the hide armour of their battalion, palm outstretched in plea. As well muscled as he had been in his youth, blue eyes wide in fear staring into his soul.

 

_Yes my love, yes it's me. I'm frightened, the darkness..it doesn't-it doesn't end. I've been wandering in the dark and I can't seem to get out. There's nothing here_.

 

Dwalin felt his face stream uncontrollably, a hot and sickening wave welling up inside threatening to spill out as he shivered before his lover's ghostly anguish. Eyes tight shut he felt finally the cold rough hand against his scarred cheek that had plagued his sleeping hours. He felt the quaking fear in it's tremble, the press of colder lips on his crown sending static down his spine. He forced his eyes open.

 

_I can't find the hallowed halls, Givashel, there's only the darkness here. They burnt our bodies and now we are all lost, left to wander this horrible place whence Mahal does not reach!_ The spirit wept, _did you take my armour back to my father's house my Givashel? Did you tell them what you did?_

"Khûrun, my One I tried. They cast me from you door-" he cut off.

_Oh my Dwalin, always so brave!_ the spirit snapped, twisting his lover's hands to his breastplate suddenly and forcing their gaze to fix _Do you still dream about us? The things you did to my body? Do you remember this?_

The spirit's eyes flashed and darkened, sorrow now contorted into a perverse and maddening malice without joy. Beneath Dwalin's fingertips a different heat swelled and a wetness came to his trapped palm, a slick of blood dark and flowing like thin honey from between the beaten leather plates of Khûrun's armour.

 

_Do you remember your last mercy Givashel? Do you remember your pretty little blade just for me, piercing the heart you'd have sworn yourself to? Was it beautiful to watch me die bereft of honour??_

 

And as he spoke with the other hand he brought out that same dagger, birthed grotesquely from the wound itself slicked with the same metallic stinking blood. His blue eyes became white with rage and desperate sorrow. Now he crushed Dwalin against him, bloody limbs about his muscled neck, heart pouring out between them and soaking their laps. The elder dwarf's hands held him tight in shivering embrace, weeping now uncontrollably into his dishevelled black braids. The spectre kissed him grief-stricken, and on his chaste tongue the smokey taste of ash and death lingered.

 

_Dwalin my beautiful warrior, are you not tired? Leave your sleepless nights and it's terrors and join me in this dim and insubstantial realm! Give yourself up to me in payment for your sin to wander this desolate place between the worlds! Do you still mourn me beloved? Would you go willingly into the void, knowing we still might not find each other in the blackness? My darling, would you give me your life and seek our miserable eternity?_

 

Dwalin felt the flash of the blade to the back of his neck, blunt and cruel and burningly hot. A blackness then fell upon his vision, and in his arms the spectre seemed to become lifeless. He felt his consciousness slowly slip away into ease and peace, his hands groping for anything that might keep his lover close. Though he could not see in that moment, he clasped a familiarly well-worn hat.


	5. Entrapment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! It's been far too long between chapters. Ive been super busy and distracted XD bad, bad me. Hope you will accept my apologies and this humble offering :) many thanks for your patience

The first thing Dwalin could recall with a rational mind was a horrible claustrophobia, a tight restriction of sore limbs that in any other instance he would have found quite pleasurable. The sickening familiarity of the forest then came washing over him, and he became aware of the silky bondage binding him high into canopy of dead wood, trapped by the monstrous spiders alongside the rest of his kin. There was a burning sensation to the top of his spinal column, at which point he'd realised that he'd been ambushed in his delirium and must have been bitten, hence his current surroundings. No spectral knife then, he pondered letting the adrenalin well up in his pulsing bound fists. Only the morose partnership of the spiders and the spiteful trees, made allied bedfellows by some shared dark purpose.

His blood felt cold, almost fizzy in his temples. Pieces of memory began to shunt forward into his consciousness, as if wound by clockwork, as if he hadn't the power of recollection before. The sensation of calf and sheepskin in his rough hands, the pungent familiarity of pipe weed. A cold, full mouth. Bofur, the toy maker had been unconscious in his arms in the humid darkness, and then there came the searing pain bellow his skull. 

He savoured the burning sting. It felt uncommonly cold for an injury, no dull heated ache for endorphins to seize, to throb around the site and soothe the skin-merely coldness. Dwalin had grown from youth with a great tolerance for pain, bred for battle and forged in the pushing of physical boundaries, but his adult relationship with it had never been truly wholesome. For suffering and pain was now wrapped up in his darker, sensual mind. Pain and misery were Khûrun now. Khûrun had been passion, volatile and destructive. When they fucked it was as if the fire of the master-forge was outside their door. Yet his erotic compulsions for physical hurt hadn't started with Khûrun, nor was it the sum their carnal activity. Yet pain seemed all Dwalin had left for comfort, and on his forearms new cuts were made almost nightly and healed between old battle scars without much notice by anyone else, and when he tended them he thought only of Khûrun.

He'd been his One, ever since that late summer afternoon all those years ago. Dwalin had been off on his own, shirking training to hunt rabbit on the rocky outcroppings north of the encampment. He'd been too cocky to think drills were worth his time, and too self-assured of his own strength to hear the wolf crouched behind a mossy limestone-mound. He only heard the scoff and cursing of a black-haired dwarrow behind him as he shot the beast through the eye and slew it. He'd called him a big-headed moron and thrust the arrow into Dwalin's palm like a single rose stem, plucked eyeball weeping and all, only to saunter off laughing.  
The dwarf kingdoms had united their armies for the assault on Azanulbizar, and he'd come from Belegost, son of an Ironfoot armour smith. Khûrun.

 

_"Do ye have any idea who I fucking am, lad?" He'd shouted, watching the jet-haired dwarrow walk off, snorting to himself._

_"Should I have? Master Longbeard, Fundin-son?" He smirked "best be getting back to drills before your father notices.."_

_"Fuck you." Dwalin grunted._

 

A month later he'd made love to him under the stars. And so their tale had played out every night, for seven wondrous years. Dwalin felt the bottom of his stomach drop suddenly, wrenching him from remembrance, and realised the silk suspension ropes were being cut free.

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Consciousness for Bofur was a thick soup of uncertainty, the heat of the forest bleeding in and out of being as he felt himself clawed back by a soothing, enclosing dream-state. There was nothing at first in the blackness, just the womb-like encompassing of the void which held shapelessness and weightless comfort, the sense of bliss steeping his tired flesh, his fevered bones. For the longest time he felt he slept, swaddled in something soft and sure, as if in the arms of a lover. Yet many years had he slept alone not knowing the tenderness of another,softer form, the hollow of a hand cupped against his bearded cheek or the dewy warmth of skin against his own. His body ached against the sickness that seemed to stir in him, that the forest had seized and moulded into hallucinations painfully real even to a sleeping mind. He was in Old Thaást's workshop again, barely into his thirties with the winter's lantern haze in the windows and the ticking of so many clockworks humming quietly in the back of his thoughts. The old dwarrow slept,sprawled out over his claw-and-ball footed chair against the hearth, the lines on his weathered face deepened by the shadows cast across the stone and plaster wall.

 

His hands were small again, dainty and girlish in his youth, ideal for winding the cogs of small mechanical wonders or carving the finest details in walnut or birch. He couldn't make a voice, but in his throat he too felt it lighter and unbroken in his young years. He found himself in the corner of that old safe place, on a pile of soft rags of cast-off leathers and hay where he'd remembered sleeping in the fire light of evenings too traumatic to return home. The scent of the timber was sweet, and the dry hay good. The leather in his adult mind pulled terrible sensuous thoughts into being that he fought, the delicious innocence all but lost to it's earthy temptation.

 

A tarnished old mirror reflected the spitting embers in the twilight, it's silver surface marked with age in veins and static circular ripples that broke the reflections into pieces like the film of a pond. In it he saw his plump youthful face unmarked by puberty, his hazel eyes burning miserable into themselves, framed by brown tresses that surpassed his almost feminine waist. His father had cut his hair almost to the scalp in a drunken rage one night, made his mother watch and taunted that she'd burdened him with a little girl in the guise of a son. He'd watched his mother lovingly gather the tresses up when he'd stormed out to the Inn, weaving the deep chestnut silk into fine little ropes for herself, crafting fine little chain links from them in the fire-light. She'd made secret jewellery from them, she'd said kissing him tenderly, and kept it close to her heart.

He'd scarcely shown his face for months after that, for a dwarf without his hair may as well be as ugly as a man or as lowly as a beast.

 

He glared at himself in the filthy mirror and suddenly he saw himself burning, naked, and the mark on his groin was searing, weeping as if it was fresh. His stomach knotted tightly,feeling as if he were falling, hurtling down into some terrible cavern; Bofur felt himself tense up in the shapeless dark, twist away from the sting desperately until finally the pain faded with the visions of the workshop as if plucked like a bee-bard. All was silent blackness again, and yet still the nauseating sensation of falling gripped his gut.

 

It was as if time did not exist in this dark, sleepy place. For images came and went with what seemed an age between them and yet were as fleeting as that space between laboured sleep itself and wakefulness. Bofur's body shivered, and from the great shapeless void came yet more sensual visions of the past, now rich and carnal. His limbs felt a gentle pressure, and his body remember instinctively the secure sense of being held. Images torturous and obscene flashed through his consciousness, the delicious tangle of limbs and the scent of sweat that was desire.  
His mind was awash with delicious images of rich dark hair and thick unyielding muscle, the faces of lovers past, names all but forgotten except in moans and pleading whispers. He'd taken many partners in his years Nogrod, on nights where he'd lived up to his paternal weakness for drink and wanted only to be away from the shame inside him. Handsome dwarrow, strong, broad and all of what he wasn't. Mahal, even one or two dwarrow-dammes, wherever he could find distraction between the thighs and in the beds of another. Not all of them pleasant, not all of them kind. He remembered a nameless silver-blonde youth spread across a down comforter propped on his palms, bearded chin stained dark with wine whimpering mercilessly into his shoulder bellow, cock thick, swollen and angry spreading his opening painfully wide despite tears of protest, rough greedy thrusts splitting him apart.There'd been no preparation, and both of them were horrible drunk. He'd not been there in the morning when Bofur woke on bloody sheets. He'd been fucked a lot like that when he was younger.

 

 

..................................................................................................................................................................................

 

 

"Well fuck you very much!" Dwalin cursed as the dainty silver cell gate was slammed and bolted behind him. He thumped it hard with his free forearm, feeling no give in the shining metal at all.At least they should have had the common decency to throw Óin in with them, being learned in medicine and healing what with Bofur unconscious and gripped by sickness. Dwalin muttered khadzul profanities under his breath, he'd come across Bofur passed out and grey in the face in the midst of the fighting after being hacked out of his cocooned tree-prison, and had been with him when those dammed bastard elves had swooped in and captured them all, taking all the glory for the fight. That was after the rest of the company had already despatched most of the spiders, of course. He felt the sting of their acidic blood still on his face and neck where he'd torn limbs and shattered thorax with his now absent hatchets, and felt the heat of rage welling up from his abdomen wanting to burst forth in frustration. Dwalin did not answer well to imprisonment.

 

He'd carried the toy maker's body with ease, despite being threatened by the elves to hand him over. Hell, he'd even kept hold of his stupid hat. He'd be damned if they were going to use him as leverage against the rest of them, that was for bloody sure. It wasn't his fault he wasn't so strong. Someone had to bloody look after him, even if the task of nursemaid had him far more worried than their present captivity. They were being held in an amateur-carved stone cell, dark with a cool dusty floor and just about enough space for pacing. Thorin had better be having words, there was too much to be done already and summer was to be short lived without dealing with the filthy pointed-ears. As for Bofur, the dwarrow's smaller form was burning up in his sturdy hands. The ageing captain had to force his temper down inside himself when he thought of the indignity of being frisked of his weaponry, he was going to have to focus and use training from his youth to watch over this fever. He carefully set the smaller dwarf down in the corner, cautious as he stirred taking his cloak and warg pelt as a makeshift bedroll. It was slightly too cool in this place for springtime, the air unsavoury with the burning of strange elvish herbs and flowers. He could hear the distant voices of his kin, too faint to reach out in the coming of nightfall. Taking up a watchful post by the deceptively strong door, he rubbed the raised scars on his arms thoughtfully, and gazed out into the torchlight passed the cell, then back at Bofur. He could only wait. It wasn't as if there was ought else to be done for now.

 

..................................................................................................................................................................................

 

 

Bofur caught the scent of strange perfume, like tendrils reaching into the darkness of his fevered rest from the waking world enticing his sick mind back into the land of the living. A sweet burning, sweeter still than any pipe weed, that filled his lungs with a tangible warmth that was both comforting and sickly all at once. His mind wandered in the shapeless dark, and he felt himself engrossed in a tiredness so all-encompassing that the thought of ever being awake again seemed an impossibility and was all but undesired in this strange and smothering sleep. 

 

He let his mind give itself over to more visions of Thaâst and his workshop, the feeling of safety and warmth of the forge. The day his sister was first placed in his arms and he'd been filled with a love that was terrifying, it made the rest of the world pale in comparison. More visions of her bled through the haze, and he saw her as if in time untold grown to full stature and dwarvish beauty with the tiny hands he'd once held now bruised and tarnished by their father's hurt and without he or his brother to protect her. A gut-wrenching panic threatened to well up inside him and clutch at his heart, yet suddenly he felt arms encircle him, but where he feared crushing pain came instead the gentle pressure of reassurance on his waist, the sensation of a solid form pressed up against him. He saw nothing, but his body instinctively knew it to be Dwalin. It was as if his dream state knew the strength and intimacy of Dwalin's touch where his waking self was ignorant, revealing to him his subconscious desires for the captain of the guard he'd suppressed and denied himself these long-traveled weeks, a secret shame and blushing need when he recalled the full measure of his naked body alone in the woods and the rain. 

 

He wanted only to be close to him now in the darkness, under the gaze of this protective pillar of dwarvish masculinity, wrapped up in his strong arms and crushed with his kiss. Yet the visions shifted once more into the nauseating nothingness, and Bofur's mind was silent.

 

 

..................................................................................................................................................................................

 

Dwalin had remained vigilant long into the lightless morning hours, watching elves come to and fro to feed the torches and gawk at the Naugrim captives, when finally he slumped against the cold stone and the need for sleep claimed him. Dreams came as they always did when he closed his eyes, haunting him with old memory without regard to the day's conflict. He remembered the day all those years ago he'd killed the warg whilst on patrol. They'd been hunting an Orc pack across country when he'd cornered her against a briar. He'd cut down her mount easily enough, but she was a much worthier match for his strength. A lustrous  
mass of thick black fur and teeth, she was well-muscled and badly scarred, most likely a matriarch before the orcs had captured and broken her for their use. In her eyes he saw suffering, and a mutual understanding of the nature of violence. If he had been another dwarrow he might have fled or let her free out of respect, but Dwalin saw in her a tiredness for living that would only yield itself over to one last glory with a worthy adversary, and when he slew her he did so quick and painlessly. It was out of a strange reverence he took her pelt for a dowry, for he had plucked up the courage only weeks before to formally seek Khûrun as his life mate, and in accordance with their people's tradition must present his One with a symbol of his strength.

 

Now the scent of burning flowers found their way into his slumber,becoming the feted stench of flesh and smoke once again that clung to his clothes and hair, and he was on the battlefield staring across a vast expanse of their dead. He'd searched for days in the aftermath of the last battle, calling out for his lover until his throat was raw without answer. A part of him knew there would come no reply, but hope had not long died in his worn heart.

In the end of course, there had been no heartfelt goodbyes for them, no exchange of fateful vows. When Dwalin finally found Khûrun amongst the fallen and though barely living he was blinded, bleeding and the beasts had already taken out his tongue. Only weeping from Dwalin sounded across the desolate plateau that hour, and the sheathing of a blade into a beloved and struggling heart to end misery. He took his bloody mouth until it was cold, whispering the Guiding Prayer to Mahal, and waited at his side until the pyres were lit.


	6. The cell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this is bloody late! ( and short but more is coming...) life has a pesky habit getting the way. Personal dramas, new lovers, forging of new bonds and all that rubbish ;) I apologise fully and hope this small offering pleases for them time being.

When Bofur finally opened his eyes his lids felt like sandpaper and his mouth was rank and sour with illness. He felt the slight muscle of his back pressed into a hard and unyielding dusty floor, the filth undoubtably caking his sweat-dried skin as a result.  
His clammy palms made out the shape of a throw and tugged at the mysterious balding fur shrouding him, and suddenly he became aware from the uncomfortable cool stone beneath him that he was naked to the waist. Sore brown orbs straining to adjust in the torchlight, he felt a surge of adrenaline in the panic of uncertainty, realising the incessant murmuring of the humid forest in his dreams had broken clean into an almost deafening roar of silence. He wanted to call out, but his throat was raw, and his body still burned with exhaustion. Then he heard the familiar rasping and utterances of another, the unmistakable rumbling tones of Dwalin. The toy maker could just faintly see his broad form slumped and casting shadow across the mysterious stone cavern, hear the familiar steadiness of his breath in the dark. His eyes immediately fell into darkness again, and he buried himself into the fur for warmth, curling into himself laboredly like a child. He didn't care where he was, the captain of the guard was here, and that meant security. 

Sleep conquered his weary body like the great waters cut through the mountain,far too delicious and terrible to fight. There would be time for answers soon enough, for now his desires wanted only peace.

 

..................................................................................................................................................................................................................

 

Dwalin had started from his nightmares as he'd always done, but hadn't the heart to take back the pelt for his calming, obsessive rituals.The sleeping Firebeard had been twitchy and fitful for some hours, and Dwalin had stolen sleep whenever he felt comfortable that the toy maker had been still. They'd been imprisoned some hours, and surely dawn would be breaking soon. Bofur had writhed and whimpered in the dark, arching his slightly muscled body in apparent agony and half-cursing in Khuzdul. Remembering the searing pain in his neck, Dwalin knew that the fever could very well have been brought on by poison in the blood, fearing the venom of the hateful spiders had taken hold in the smaller dwarrow's heart. What would Óin do? The larger dwarf pressed his rough palm with uncommon gentleness to the toy makers forehead. He was burning up.  
Without much of a passing thought the captain pulled back the warg-skin and peeled off the sweat-soaked and soiled tunic shirt below, casting it aside. No protest came from the toy maker's quaking lips or any resistance from pliant,limp limbs. The dim light of the torch from the far end of the cell was barely enough to illuminate his pallid, almost glistening skin. Dwalin's weathered hands instinctively ghosted over his pulse points, undulating weakly under milky flesh smattered with freckles, like cinnamon over cream.  
Dwalin couldn't make out any visible spider bites in the gloom, nor felt any angry welts that could give them away. Something however, seemed to stir in him and caught himself suddenly.

 

Something almost felt, well, wrong. He'd felt a horrible sense of stillness come over him, a wave of compete and devastating calm when his hand made contact with his flesh. His pupils dilated at the sensation of the Ivory muscle under his fingertips, so slight compared to his own, not feminine by any means but delicate in their own sense. His chest hair was a dark chestnut and sparse by their standard, growing thinner around the collarbone which jutted out angrily making the sleeping younger dwarrow appear almost gaunt by comparison. His stomach was slick with perspiration, and cut angrily into one side of his hip a long-healed and angry scar glared out at him and gave way into a dark curly thatch of pubic hair at the shadowed seam of his britches.

 

This felt uncomfortable and oddly intimate to Dwalin, and immediately inside he felt a painful twinge. Right. No spider bite, he thought, cutting himself off and casting his eye away. Probably caught something on the road. He would wash him with the water the filthy Silvans provided to bring down his temperature. They provided that much at least. He would let him cool, recover him for good measure, and he would resume his watch by the door. Stick to what you know, he thought to himself. 

 

The older dwarrow once again took up his post, back towards the sleeping form of his cell mate-come-companion and stared back out into the yellow light of the cavernous hall. Water was brought, received begrudgingly and the ill were cleansed stoically with as little lingering glances as dwarfishly possible. He kept his watch, but it would be two more days before Bofur would awaken and ease his none so easily frayed nerve.

 

His mind also wouldn't be so simply made still or rendered obedient, however,and as the sun set on their second night in captivity Dwalin was once more plagued by his unrelenting imagination. This night saw the putrid fires and fear yield to not-quite-nightmares of flesh, where recollections of poor sleeping Bofur were centre stage. The captain replayed the movement of the younger dwarrow's frame under the touch of his hands, the way his breath had hitched as he'd been bathed softly to cool his blazing fever. He felt the throb of guilt course through his pulse when the toy maker sighed, and when his fingertips threatened to linger against his moral strength. It filled him with a shame to have this kind of physical proximity without consent or merit, and filled his gut with dread all the more to see his sleeping member grow ever slightly hard in response to his feathery touch, bulging brashly against the cloth of his remaining garments in a terrible sleeping ignorance. He had a strange, almost delicate male beauty about him, Dwalin confessed, and it was unwillingly close to disarming him.

 

...………...........................………………………….…………………….…………………….…………………….……………………..............

 

Bofur was gluttonous for the peace and withdrawal of deep sleep now. For this relapse into dreaming brought visions woven by his subconscious desires. The hard dusty stone gave way to duck-down duvets and velvet soft sheets beneath him in his mind, cradling his sore muscle and cool to the touch, the scent of applewood fires . Something else it seemed in the dark was touching him, for he felt the faint cooling traces of some unknowable contact all over his torso, making light work across his skin. Desire, which until of recent had been so slothful and dormant within him, was kindling slowly once more. He felt his skin shiver and tighten in sensitivity to the phantom upon him, which did not seek out his erogenous valleys and peaks, but instead unwittingly tease and seek a purpose all its own. His carnal self was begging for recognition, to be held and fulfilled and _known_. This feeling of warmth and care was water to the thirst of his soul that had for er long known not what it needed. Yet, just as this shapeless entity had descended, so it faded into the darkness and was swallowed up by dreamless night.

 

When the toy maker finally awoke, it was to an inhaled ragged wretch, bolt upright "spiders," he spat "fucking spiders everywhere"

Dwalin's neck might have snapped with the force he whipped round to face him having been staring out into the cell hall, though he was but a few yards away from where Bofur lay now panting, pale and shocked. His eyes briefly stunned round as serving plates were swiftly returned to a stoic, authoritative stare.

 

"I fucking saw him and they were fucking there and thenthespidersand-"he gasped, before Dwalin could force a bowl of water under his face and fetch him a harmless but sturdy thump on the back. Drinking deep and spluttering, he felt as if he wanted to be sick and shout and eat and shudder all at once.

"The elves swooped in and took our bloody victory," Dwalin spoke, stare unwavering "now we're damn near rotting in here until Thorin takes his head from his arse"

 

Bofur had never heard Dwalin speak of his prince like that. He could feel the heat of panic threaten to rise inside him again, then Dwalin continued to speak "now drink slower and bloody breathe or ye going to choke yourself" Bofur obeyed without a passing thought, and the panic evaporated like some strange magic.  
Then to Bofur's horror he suddenly became aware that he was without his tunic, with only a fur to cover himself and his low-slung britches in the shadow of the cell.

 

"You've seen me naked??" He blurted out without a thought, trying to cover himself instinctively, before realising that the fur he was using was Dwalin's and he became more ashamed. Dwalin almost laughed, or in the very least allowed the corner of his mouth to curl.

"Well, we're sodding even now, eh?" He replied. The colour immediately drained from Bofur's face. He'd known this whole time. Mr Dwalin didn't do humour and this was fucking awful.

 

"'Yer clothes are over there" the captain gestured behind, not missing a beat "dry now, but you had a pretty nasty fever. Surprised you're still about, thought the spiders had you. Just a nasty fever. I make it three days you've been out, so expect to be a wee bit thin"

 

Bofur scrabbled to dress bets he could, still seated. He wasn't kidding, he looked almost wraith-like for a dwarf, who were naturally more sturdy than men, and definitely thicker in form than bloody elves. He couldn't imagine what the older dwarrow thought of the state of him.

"They've been bringing food. Just rabbit feed, shit really but beats starving" Dwalin said bluntly "no plan as yet as how we're getting out of here, but I leave the talking to Thorin"

Bofur breathed in deeply and took another, more retrained drink from the simple wooden bowl they'd been given. The captain sat close by, propped against the curved stone wall crouched down on his haunches. The light from the torches outside illuminated the full weather-beaten marks on his face and shoulders, and Bofur did his best not to stare. 

"Pretty impressive wound you have there," Dwalin said finally, making eye contact "accident or a fight? You don't look like the type 'fer brawling about Nogrod" Bofur's hand shielded the mark instinctively, though it was already hidden beneath the pelt.

"Forge-fire poker when I was a child," he replied quietly without thought, blurting out "my Da had a temper" the truth came spilling for th unceremoniously. He'd not told anyone ever. Why now? Something about the ageing dwarrow across from him made The truth inescapable. Dwalin merely nodded, to his relief, but his eye softened just slightly. Just barely enough to see.

"You saw him in the forest didn't you?" Dwalin said plainly "it plays tricks on the mind, sick place like that. You were shouting while you were fitting"  
Bofur remained silent, and cast his eyes away from the other's gaze. He felt ashamed he'd cried out, embarrassed to be so pitiful and sickly in front of a warrior of Erebor.  
"I'm not fucking brave" he blurted, almost shaking "I'm not strong like you. This quest is so massive I'm lost. I'm terrified, not like you-"

"Fool" Dwalin cut in abruptly, looking him dead in the eye with a pregnant pause "I'm always fucking terrified. You can't escape it, it seeps into your bones and eats at you when you've seen what I've seen and done what I've done. Some days I can't even part my lips or I'm convinced the madness will pour out of me and never stop"

 

Silence fell, and Dwalin said nothing for some minutes.

"Rest yourself best you can." He said sternly, with an edge of the dismissive. Bofur said nothing, and watched as Dwalin moved to take his post at the gate. It was as if for once brief moment in time he'd witness his armour slip, and he resisted the urge to peer further, straining to see whatever that was lurking beneath that mask of dwarfish brawn. The night that followed would be restless and uneasy, for now, the sound of breath in the dark was comfort enough.

**Author's Note:**

> ***Comments are greatly received and encouraged. Improvement is what I strive for :) ***


End file.
